Canteen - San Francisco - 5 stars

Visited on:
Many times, latest on July 1, 2007.

Comments:
Five stars, best breakfast restaurant in SF, best egg Benedict anywhere. Best pancake ever tasted, though it is not exactly an American pancake.

Experience:
The restaurant itself is very small, adjacent to the now Academy of Arts student houses. It is kind of hard to tell from the outside, but if you see lots of people crammed inside a small space, that is Canteen. However, I've been there around 12, 12:30 a couple of times and I never had to wait. Brunch hours are the busiest for sure.

So today we started with their brioche. It is sometimes off the menu, so need to ask. Each small fluffy lump is about 3 inches high, about 1/3 of the size of a regular loaf of brioche. Golden top, soft powder sugar, melting bread warm from the oven. Hmm...who needs those extra 2/3 of a loaf?

Brioche




The next dish to come up is a tomato and prawn cold soup. Imagine our surprise when it was "white"! The first taste made us all gasp in surprise - it does taste like nothing but tomatoes, but such clarity in the texture! Refreshingly crisp with shredded basil, just like waking up on a sea cliff and draw in your first deep breathe of the morning with a hint of seafood on the sea breeze. If that air could be had for breakfast, it would taste something like this soup. Prawns are very juicy and sweet. There are 5 of them, quite generous!

Tomato and prawn soup




Next is fish hash, which is truffles compared to your regular button mushroom of a hash. Nice chunky pieces of soft fish with even creamier potatoes in a light but savory saffrony sauce. Then add in that poached egg...so incredibly yummy.



Then of course la piece de resistance - Egg Benedicte. There was an unfortunate accident today: one of the eggs was broken when served. Quel horreur! When I showed it to the chef, he immediately tossed that egg into the trash and offered me another plate on him. How could I turn him down? When the second plate arrived, I could tell that the first plate was done by sous-chef, because this time it was as my memory: the white splits open at the lightest pressure of the knife, warm yolk runneth down along the grilled ham and muffin...a mouthful is a moment of bliss in culinary paradise. And did I mention the sauce? Amazing, amazing hollandaise...so light in texture that it was like the foam of regular hollandaise but with the full flavor and body of a much thicker sauce. We had no trouble finishing plus moping up the second plate, no sir!
Egg Benedict - first plate: see egg on upper corner broken?



Egg Benedict - second plate: must be done by the chef himself



The night before, I was watching Iron Chef "pork chop", so I was seized with an unreasonable longing for pork chop, as many fans of the shows would have experienced frequently. And guess what? Pork chop showed up in Canteen's daily changing menu that day! What can I say...must be dharma. Of course I had to order it, and this beautiful piece of pork arrived. Where there was fat, there was the perfect melding of fat and lean meat, soft as a ripe peach. Where there was only lean meat, it was perfectly pinkish in the middle with a nice firm but yielding texture, dripping with juice. The white beans added the un-needed but much appreciated extra protein. Honey mustard sauce gave an extra kick that saves the dish from being to heavy for a breakfast item. Now, this is what I call a breakfast steak!

Pork chop



Finally, the dessert. Think of a thick slice of really great crepe with fresh strawberry compote hidden underneath, then you have an idea of what the pancake is like. It has a strong taste of egg, and high quality eggs too, no mistake about that. It is like the homemade crepes that my mom used to make me for breakfast, so I feel nostalgic about the dish. My friend who went there for the first time was totally stunned by her first bite that she couldn't speak for a long time. Later, she told us that she could feel tears welling to her eyes. Now she's been called one of the most stoic, expressionless people you could ever meet, so this is high compliments indeed from her. Warm, actually hot pancake, thin in the middle to accommodate the compote, thick on the edges to add extra chewiness to a slice so you can taste the dough as well as the compote. Sour cream sauce again light as a dream, brown sugar syrup is only a dark shadow of sweetness that highlighted the slight tang of fresh strawberries. I cannot think of a more perfect pancake dish than this.

Strawberry pancake with sour cream and brown sugar syrup




Four people, absolutely full, about $65 for all dishes (I added in the price of the egg benedict) and one orange juice, one latte, tip not included. Very satisfactory as usual, love Canteen, can't wait to come back, say...next week.:p

Basic information:
http://www.sfcanteen.com/

817 Sutter Street, SF

415 928 8870

They also serve lunch and dinner, brunch on weekends only. They recently changed their business hours, so call ahead to ask and reserve for dinner.